“This was just a wasteland(荒地，废墟).” Graeme Miller, who ran Sunderland City Council for six years until 2024, gestures out of the window of the newish and still sparkling City Hall building. The site lay vacant(空置的，未被占用的) for nearly two decades after the Vaux brewery closed in 1999. Now City Hall stands at the centre of a fresh clutch of office buildings facing the River Wear.
“这里曾是一片荒地。”格雷姆·米勒边说边指向窗外那栋崭新且依然闪亮的市政厅大楼。米勒曾执掌桑德兰市议会六年，直至2024年。自1999年沃克斯酿酒厂关闭后，这片地块闲置了近二十年。如今，市政厅矗立在一批面朝威尔河的新建办公楼群中央。
Sunderland, once the world’s biggest shipbuilding hub(中心，枢纽), has been in decline(在衰落，在下降) for decades. Its last shipyard(造船厂) closed in 1988. Tucked on England’s north-east coast, the city of 290,000 sits third-bottom for earnings in a ranking of Britain’s 63 largest urban areas. It is dead last(倒数第一) for businesses per person. Voters showed their discontent(不满) at local elections in May, handing the populist-right(右翼民粹主义的) Reform UK 58 of the council’s 75 seats. Labour went from 54 councillors to five. “People still are not happy, even with all of this,” laments(哀叹，惋惜) Mr Miller.
桑德兰曾是世界上最大的造船中心，但几十年来一直在衰落。它最后一家造船厂于1988年关闭。这座拥有29万人口的城市坐落在英格兰东北海岸，在英国63个最大城市地区的收入排名中位列倒数第三，人均企业数量更是垫底。选民在5月的地方选举中表达了不满，将市议会75个席位中的58席交给了右翼民粹政党“改革英国”。工党则从54名议员锐减至5名。“即便有了这一切，人们仍然不满意，”米勒先生叹息道。
Might e-sports help give Sunderland a brighter future? Enter British Esports, founded in 2016 by Chester King, who also runs a health-care business, and chaired by Andy Payne, a veteran of the video-games industry.(英国电子竞技公司登场了，它由切斯特·金于2016年创立（他同时还经营一家医疗保健企业），并由电子游戏行业资深人士安迪·佩恩担任主席。) Their venture has set up shop(开店，入驻) in what was a vacant Audi dealership(经销商，经销店) next to Sunderland Football Club’s Stadium of Light. It has also turned a row of town houses and connected office space into its National Esports Performance Campus, where touring gaming pros(职业选手（professional 的缩写）) can stay.
电子竞技能否帮助桑德兰迎来更光明的未来？英国电子竞技公司登场了。该公司由切斯特·金于2016年创立，他同时还经营着一家医疗保健企业，公司由电子游戏行业资深人士安迪·佩恩担任主席。他们的企业入驻了桑德兰足球俱乐部光明球场旁一家空置的奥迪经销店。他们还将一排联排别墅及相连的办公空间改造成了国家电竞表演园区，供巡回参赛的职业电竞选手住宿。